This week I discovered that I have almost no purple fabric; scrappy, yardage or otherwise. I don’t know why. The purple section on the shelf is nearly empty and my purple scrap bin is the same. I will soon have the pleasure of shopping for a few purple blenders to build things back up. But first, let me show you what I managed to cobble together for the RSC16 for the month of March.
My blocks for the Gemstone quilt are starting to accumulate. Here are the newest additions in all their purple splendor.
This quilt is going to be so pretty. The first three months look wonderful together. Remember that each block will be sashed in the pale green so they will be floating on the green background.
Because most of my purple scraps are strings of various widths, it was easier to work on my improv project. I made a slab of purple fabric using all sorts of tiny pieces.
Check out my teeny tiny HST’s on the lower right. Those were fun to put together. Once I had the slab done, I decided to start making blocks out of the slabs I had made thus far. I wasn’t sure what size I wanted to cut them to, so I practiced with an old rainbow slab I made a while back. I am going to make HST’s which will combine the made fabric and a simple gray polka dot fabric. Once I decided on the size block (9″) I started cutting the blue, pink and purple slabs. You’ll notice a substantial color difference in both of these shots. The photo above was taken on a rainy day when I had to rely on terrible lighting. The shot below was taken today with wonderful sunlight streaming in. The color below are much more accurate. (Thankfully so.)
I am loving how these are coming together.
I was careful to preserve the parts of the made fabric that I wanted to show up in the HSTs. My little girl, the pink pinwheel, the tiny purple HST’s, and the little deer on the edge of the other pink HST. For now, I am going to aim for four or five blocks from each color, which will give me about 50-55 blocks. Then I can lay them out and see what it still needs. I have plenty of the gray dot fabric for the project.
Cutting the made fabric slabs left me with a number of large scraps. I will hold on to these and can stitch them back together as needed for extra blocks when I lay this out.
Linking up with my usuals, including Oh Scrap and So Scrappy and looking forward to seeing what everyone is doing with their purple scraps this month!
Bernie these all look wonderful ; I really like that gemstone pattern
Thank you Deb. Me too! I can’t wait to sash the blocks and see them with more of the green. We are having the sunniest afternoon today, after about four days of constant rain. So beautiful. Hope your day is as lovely. 🙂
My purple stash always needs more purple! And I love purple. 🙂 I love that you teamed yours with that beautiful gray dot – it’s going to be such a beautiful pattern. And I love the little surprises you include on your quilts with the little fussy-cuts.
Thanks Linda. These slabs of improv have been so much fun. It is very freeing to just cut pieces and sew with hardly any measuring. It is kind of like finger painting vs using a brush. No rules or parameters. (painting is a weird analogy for me as I cannot paint or draw. Not. At. All.) 🙂
I found my purple stash pretty lacking about a year ago. It is better, but a hard color for me to purchase, apparently!
For some reason, I thought I had plenty of purple. I was so surprised when I went to pull some fabric! Thinking back though, none of my recent projects have had purple, so why would I think there was scrap?? Silly. Have a great afternoon Yvonne!
All of your blocks look great. I am really inspired by your HST project. I live how that is looking. Thanks for sharing with Oh Scrap! I can’t wait to see how your gemstone quilt turns out.
Thank you Cynthia. I am loving the gemstone quilt too. The hardest part is I want to sash those blocks because the pale green is going to set them off so beautifully. I am also thinking about which colors I want to put in the quilt. I think yellow and orange are out. Maybe burgundy instead of true red and a dark (think emerald) green? This means I will need to make more of the pink, blue and purple blocks. What do you think?
All of your purple blocks are so pretty! I especially love the HSTs with your made fabric! What a great idea!
Thank you Diann. I am looking forward to watching this quilt grow each month. I think it is going to be a fun one! Enjoy your evening. 🙂
I don’t have a lot of purple either, which is weird considering it was my favorite color for years. Your blocks look like so much fun to make for both quilts. I love how you’ve paired the made fabric triangles with the gray dot. Lots of neat space for some negative space quilting. And with your careful placement of fabric bits, it will be a bit of an I spy quilt, too.
LOVE those PURPLE Crumb-y HSTs!!!
Thank you! I really like them as well. It is such a fun project.
That idea of the slabs of colour and then turning them into HSTs is brilliant! I hope I get round to doing that one day. Thanks for the inspiration.
You’re so very welcome! I hope you get round to it as well, it is a lot of fun and incredibly easy. 🙂
Oh, I love how your purple pink blocks for the Gemstone Quilt are coming together.
Purple is a tricky color. I do not know whether to keep it with my cools (blues and greens) or my warms (pinks and fuchsias). May be it deserves a whole bin just by itself. HSTs out of scrappy blocks is a great idea.
Hugs,
Preeti.
Thank you! Purple is tricky. I think it is the kind of purple. There are warms and cools – depending on how pink or blue the tone is. There — I just made it that much harder for you!